Vanilla Mint
by MsMacBeth10
Summary: Chitanda asks Houtarou to accompany her for some ice cream, but even then he can't escape the mysteries...


Houtarou let out a sigh as he slid the door to the clubroom open. To his surprise, the only other member of the Classics Club present was Chitanda; the other two were nowhere to be found. That was certainly strange…but Houtarou wasn't in the mood to find out what had happened to his friend. It was too much trouble.

"Oreki-san!" Chitanda greeted him, leaning in slightly too close for his liking. "You came!" He simply shrugged as an answer, but Chitanda had not finished speaking. "I want some ice cream!"

"Fine with me," he said, waving a hand lazily, "You don't have to tell me about it."

She danced a few steps back, and said rather embarrassedly, "No, no, not just me. You see, I want…I want you to come, too, Oreki-san!" Was that a blush on her cheek?

Houtarou groaned inwardly. They'd have to trek all the way to the ice cream shop, and in the summer heat it was simply too much. "You go," he insisted. "I don't want ice cream right now." She looked so disappointed that he hurriedly corrected, "Er, I mean…ice cream sounds…good right now…?" Chitanda awarded his decision with a huge smile.

"Thank you, Oreki-san! I didn't want to go by myself, you know! There wouldn't be any fun in that!" She dashed out of the clubroom at once, leaving Houtarou with no choice but to follow her.

As they made their way to the shop, Chitanda talked animatedly to him, while he merely listened and nodded in the right places. She didn't seem to mind being the only one speaking, and finally, she pointed at the shop's sign and announced, "There it is, Oreki-san!"

"Thank you, Kami-sama," Houtarou muttered to himself, entering the shop after Chitanda. He found her waiting for him.

"I haven't decided yet, Oreki-san, so you go ahead," she said, in response to his questioning glance.

As if he had a choice. Houtarou studied the different choices, and after a pause informed the server, "I'll have the mint."

"Sure thing," the shop owner said, and scooped two large servings into a cone before handing it to Houtarou.

Houtarou briefly wondered whether he should pay for Chitanda's ice cream, too, but decided against it—it would seem too much like a date, and this definitely was _not _a date, thank you very much.

Chitanda eventually picked the vanilla, and the shop owner dipped the scooper into water to clean it before scooping the chosen flavor into a second cone for her. She paid the proper amount and led the way out of the store to eat.

"It's good," Houtarou admitted, taking a cautious lick.

She beamed at him. "This is the best shop around for ice cream, Oreki-san. That's why I wanted…wanted…" she trailed off and frowned suddenly. "Oreki-san, Oreki-san! There's mint on my vanilla ice cream!"

"What?" Houtarou peered at the spot of mint on her otherwise very vanilla ice cream. Her face appeared beside his, and startled, he stumbled backward. "You're right, there _is _mint on there…"

"How do you think it's possible?" Chitanda pressed.

Well, he did order mint before her, so that's obviously where it came from. "I ordered mint, you know," he reminded her, but to his annoyance she wasn't satisfied with his answer.

"But Mr. Shopkeeper clearly washed the scooper, didn't he? We both saw him! Yet there's still mint…I'm curious, Oreki-san!" Chitanda stared at him with those large, round eyes, and he sighed in defeat.

He looked up at the clouds, thinking of a satisfactory answer for Chitanda. In the meantime, she licked off the mint spot on hers, and asked, "Oreki-san, why does the mint taste so watery?"

"Watery?" he repeated, deep in thought. His mint ice cream tasted perfectly fine...

"I mean, it's good, but there's a lot of water on it…"

Then it came to him. "You said the mint has water on it, right?" Chitanda nodded, and he swept on, "Well, suppose…suppose the shopkeeper dipped the scooper into the water to wash off the mint, and it takes a long time for the mint to melt in the water, right? There would be some mint bits leftover in the water while he takes the scooper back out, and during that time the mint in the water got stuck to the scooper. So it was still on the scooper when he scooped up the vanilla ice cream, and that's how it got onto yours."

There was probably some complex science behind it, but at the moment science was the last thing he cared about.

She looked happy enough. "You're a genius, Oreki-san!"

"It wasn't much. Just luck, you know."

"Oreki-san?" _Can't she leave me in peace while I'm eating? _

"Mmm?"

"There's…there's some mint on your cheek…and, I don't know why, but I've suddenly become very fond of mint..." Chitanda said hesitantly. "Do you have any idea why? I'm curious, Oreki-san!"

With that, she leaned in again, and kissed the mint off his cheek.

_At least that saves me the trouble of answering, _thought Houtarou, but for some reason he could not fathom, he wanted to purposefully smudge more mint on his face...

Not that he would actually do it!

* * *

**Disclaimer: I do not own Hyouka, or any ice cream (at the moment) for that matter. **

**A/n:**

**My first Hyouka fanfic! Houtarou and Chitanda are adorable together, so I couldn't resist writing a one-shot about them (while having no internet, but anyway. Oh, how much the fanfiction site has updated in the time I haven't been on). **

**Hopefully they're in character... **


End file.
